A Group with Eternal Interests

Why were you created?  Why do you exist?  Is there a purpose for your being? All questions we have either asked or pondered probably at some time.   Maybe we found answers or maybe we are still searching.  In either case, my searching over time in God’s Word has helped me to come to this conclusion:  God created you and me to have fellowship with Him and one another.

When God created the earth and all that is in it, He didn’t do it just so He could say ‘it is done, it is good, now I can go.’  He created it so that He could come and walk in the Garden of Eden and commune with man.  

God knew that He desired that fellowship exist between Himself and man.  But He also desired that fellowship exist between humankind.  And God knew that in order for man to survive – to thrive – they needed to be in fellowship with Him and with one another.  I think this sums up the reason behind Jesus providing us with the Great Commandment:  Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Fellowship, according to Webster, is defined as a group with similar interests.  

Our society has all kinds of groups with similar interests; some good, some bad.  We have clubs, lodges, and fraternal orders.  We have amateur athletic events as well as professional.  We have bands and music concerts.  We have indoor recreational activities as well as outdoor ones.

And because of this, we live in a culture where people’s interests define who they are.  And a lot of times, these interests dictate a person’s time away from the Lord. 

God designed us to live, and living means doing things that are of interest to us.  There is nothing wrong with having interests.  I have many:)))  But, if those interests take precedence over my time with God and His Church, then I am misinterpreting the reason why God created me.  And if my interests, or my children’s interests, pull me away from God, then they are not good and they need to be reevaluated.

The Church is also group with similar interests, which I know are the most important interests of all because they deal with eternity.  The interests of the Church are that of Jesus who is the Head of the Church, or at least they should be.  And if the Church is in fellowship with Christ it will live through Him.  It will fulfill the interests that Christ wants to see for people here on earth.

1 Corinthians 1: 4-9 shows what happens to those who are in Fellowship with God.

But before diving into some specific points of the passage, there is one clear idea God wants all of us to see:  God calls you and me into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ.

Why?  Why would God want you to have fellowship with His Son?

It's because:

1.  This fellowship enriches your life in every way.

• The more you seek to know Christ, the more knowledge you will gain; the more wisdom you will obtain; and the more eloquently you will be able to testify of God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice.
• So if you want your life to be full and good, despite all the pain, trial, and struggle you face, then you must have fellowship with Jesus Christ.
• And this fellowship occurs when you repent of your mistakes and begin to let Him transform your life.

2.  This fellowship will grant you spiritual gifts He wants for you to edify the ministry of the Church.

• Jesus is going to provide you with the spiritual gifts you need to accomplish what He calls you to do.
• So if you are in fellowship with Him, there is no need to worry if you can get the job done.

3.  This fellowship will keep you strong to the end, and will help you to remain blameless on the Day Jesus returns.

• Jesus does not want you to remain in sin when He has come to give you power and freedom over the bondages of sin.
• So be blameless, remaining righteous in a fallen world, by using only the strength Jesus can provide through fellowship with Him.

But, if you take away this fellowship, this fellowship with Christ, you will not fulfill what God has purposed you to do.  Yea, you will get through life and possibly have some success, but you won’t be blameless.  You won’t be blameless because you will be relying upon your own strength and knowledge, not that of the Lord’s, which will certainly lead to doing things your way.

And there's one sure way to be out of fellowship with Christ, and that is to be out of fellowship with one another.

Sinners, which we all are, find ways to hurt others, sometimes on purpose and sometimes unknowingly, both of which break fellowship.  And knowing this now helps make sense of why Christ taught us to pray, ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’   Fellowship can only occur if you and I are willing to admit our fault when we have wronged someone, and that we’re also willing to forgive the one who has wronged us.  After all, if Jesus could pray on the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing," then I must do the same for those who have wronged me.

Yet, let me share with you a story that shows what pure fellowship among humans really looks like.

In Brooklyn, NY, there’s a school named Chush that caters to learning-disabled children.  At a Chush fundraising dinner, the father of a student delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.

“Where is the perfection in my son Shaya?” he asked.  “Everything God does is done with perfection.  But my child cannot understand things as other children do.  My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do.  Where is God’s perfection?”  At first, the audience was shocked by the father’s question.  “I believe,” the father answered, “that when God brings a child like this one into the world, the perfection that He seeks is in the way people react to this child.”

And then the father told this story:  One day he and his son, Shaya, were walking through the park when they saw a group of boys playing baseball.  Shaya wanted very much to join them, but his father hesitated.  Would the other boys let Shaya play, or would they laugh at him and reject him?   Surprisingly, the other boys allowed him to play.  But it was obvious that Shaya had no athletic skills, and so he stayed on the bench most of the time.

In the final inning, the two teams were tied, and Shaya’s team had men on base.  To everyone’s surprise, the captain of the team allowed Shaya to bat.  The pitcher, seeing Shaya’s nervousness, stepped forward a few feet and pitched the ball softly at Shaya.  He swung and missed it.  One of Shaya’s teammates stepped up behind him and placed his hands over Shaya’s.  Together, they hit the next ball.  It rolled to the feet of the pitcher, but the pitcher seemed not to notice it at first.  “Run to first, Shaya!  Run to first!” his father called, and little Shaya ran with all his might to first base.  The pitcher finally picked up the ball and threw it over the head of the first baseman.  “Run to second, Shaya!  Run to second!”  By the time he reached first base, the right fielder had the ball.  He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who was still running.  But the right fielder understood what the pitcher’s intentions were, so he threw the ball high and far over the second baseman’s head.  Now the whole team was screaming, “Run to third, Shaya!  Run to third!”  Shaya made it to third just in time to see the second baseman throw the ball way over the third baseman’s head.  Now everyone on the field was shouting as one, “Run home, Shaya!  Run home!”  And little Shaya made it to home plate, where his team lifted him onto their shoulders and carried him around like a conquering hero.

“That day,” said the father softly, with tears now rolling down his cheeks, “those 18 boys reached their level of God’s perfection.”

You see, when you are struggling with a disability of any kind, it makes a difference that caring people surround you.  And when you’re the parents of a child with special needs, you need people who will love her and accept her for the person God created her to be.  Why?  It's because God’s perfection is found in people who care.

The same is true of the Church, the body of believers who follow Christ.  

It was designed by God to be:

• A place where true fellowship occurs.  
• A place where love is given freely.  
• A place where people can come as they are and not feel judged or condemned.  
• A place where all people are striving to follow the model given by our Lord Jesus Christ.  
• A place where everyone yells, “Run home, Shaya!  Run home!”

In conclusion, Fellowship is defined as a group with similar interests, and is the key for us to have a strong relationship with God.  And if we want to have a successful life, we must not rely solely upon ourselves.  We need the fellowship of the Lord, and we need to be in the fellowship of the Church, which is a group with eternal interests.  And it is here that we will find the answers to our questions and will fulfill the purposes that God has for us.

Unchanged or Unburdened?

Pride, especially when it infiltrates my faith, becomes an attitude that says, “I am spiritually better than you.”  And this attitude was evident in the parable Jesus told about a Pharisee and a Tax Collector.

In Luke 18: 9-14 we are reminded how easy it is to fall into the trap of pride, especially when we begin to compare our righteousness with someone else’s.

And when we begin to compare our faith – our goodness - to that of others we will see that our prayer doesn’t resonate with the Spirit of God.  Rather, it drips with pride and selfishness.  Our prayer becomes polluted and lacks any concern for the will of God.

The Pharisee only prayed so that God and others could see how righteous and good he really was.  He had no concern for what God may want – He already had that figured out as he shared with us in his prayer.

But Jesus contrasted the attitude of the Pharisee with that of the tax collector.  And we see a prayer resonating with humility – a prayer that was only 7 words long, yet showed a man broken before God as he realized the magnitude of his disobedience toward God.

And this is what we want to look at specifically today – the attitude that exists when a person is in the presence of God.

So the question to be asked is:  When in the presence of God, how do you walk away from God:  Unchanged or Unburdened?

Pride is an easy temptation.  

Many of us find ourselves being lured by it, enticed by it, and Satan uses it as a means to bite us OFTEN.  And with the Pharisee, he was so far gone in his pride that there was no room in his heart to hear what God desired of him.  

The Pharisee came into the presence of God, did his religious thing, and walked away unchanged.  After all there was no need to change – he was religious and proud of it.  And that’s what you will often see in religious persons.

Religious people don’t need to hear from God – they’ve already got this faith thing already figured out – they know exactly what God wants from them and other people, and when others don’t live up to the expectation, these people are seen as weaker and looked down upon.

Yet the opposite of pride is humility, and we must seek it. 

True humility keeps pride in check.  True humility is grounded in Christ and desires to give credit where credit is due.  True humility says, “I am who I am and do what I do because Christ has redeemed me.”  And true humility is what we see in the tax collector.

The tax collector beat his chest; at a distance, not even looking to heaven because he knew he was guilty of disobedience toward God.  He was so distraught that his prayer was a mere 7-word prayer, ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.” 

So if you look very closely at the parable Jesus taught, the difference you will see between the Pharisee and tax collector in the presence of God was merely how they viewed themselves before God. 

The Pharisee viewed that God needed him.  And when he walked away from God, he walked away unchanged.

The tax collector on the other hand viewed that he needed God.  And when he walked away from God, he walked away unburdened.  He no longer was a sinner with a past, but a redeemed man with a future.  The burden of his sin no longer held him in captivity.

Too many people come into the presence of God, come to a worship celebration knowing that they are living in sin like the tax collector, but walk away from the experience like the Pharisee.  And Jesus asks “Why?”  Jesus asks, “Why do you let your pride keep you from living fully for me?  Why do you continue in your sin knowing that I am the final judge of your soul?  Why do you take advantage of my grace?”

Psalm 51: 16-17 states, “You (God) do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.  My sacrifices, O God, are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

In today’s terms it would state, “You (God) do not delight in how I worship you; you do not take pleasure that I play an instrument, sing a song, raise my hands, pray an eloquent prayer, or dance in the aisles.  No, you God desire that my worship is done in humility and done in response – in gratitude – for what you have done for me.”

So God is not delighting in persons who need to be needed.  No, He’s delighting in persons who need Him.

God is looking for humility, for persons who reverently say to Him, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”  And what does He do every time for that person if the prayer is sincere?  He grants mercy.  That’s the good news of Jesus Christ.

Humility is hard.  Pride is easy.  But God makes it clear, “You can either exhalt yourself now and be humbled later or take time now to learn humility and be exhalted later.”  And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather learn the lesson of humility now rather than later.  It won’t hurt as bad now as it will then.

So in closing, you’ve been in the presence of God today.  Are you walking away Unchanged or Unburdened?  It’s easy to be a Pharisee.  It’s right to be a tax collector.